


much too tall for a boyfriend

by maedron



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cousin Incest, Dirty Talk, F/F, Femslash, Roleplay, and also some plot, pwp with gender feelings, shades of FTM fingon though, they're AFAB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:08:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28032171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maedron/pseuds/maedron
Summary: Certain pairs of Finwëan cousins must never be left together unsupervised, but no one ever worries about Maitimo and Findekánë.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	much too tall for a boyfriend

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for gender dysphoria. 
> 
> Title is from [belle & sebastian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyaJtnUvzqU). 
> 
> I wanted them to both have slightly more feminized names, so warning for name-chaos that wasn't _super_ thought through, except for the fact that Findekáno is a very masculine name and for plot (??) reasons it felt important for AFAB Fingon to not start out with a name meaning "commander" or whatever. so I just threw on an old-fashioned e-umlaut instead! 
> 
> ~~"Maitë" as a diminutive might also mean something like "handy" so make of that what you will~~
> 
> Also sorry to anyone who read this before 12/15 and saw the references to SUNlight LOL WHOOPS

There is an unspoken rule across all the households of the Finwion princes. Perhaps there was once a list, compiled at a clandestine meeting between stewards who are better negotiators amongst themselves than their lords: tactful, faithful servants determining that it would be to the benefit of all the Noldor to keep certain pairs of the High King’s grandchildren from spending time together unaccompanied. 

Mandating that should these pairs of grandchildren contrive to do so, they either be separated—or immediately and aggressively supervised. 

More than one intrepid footman has intervened, for instance, in the service of preventing spontaneous consanguineous marriage between Princess Írissë and Prince Turkafinwë. Several methods have proven successful: barging in and announcing the sighting of a buck of at least twelve hands, perhaps even _fourteen_ ; insisting that a strong wind blew the tent down; or, if the parties in question have managed to slip away sight unseen, sending out the hounds. 

If not for the fortunate fact of their sex, Prince Findaráto and Prince Turukáno would already have been married at least once, or once and a half. Their choice to attempt to do so in one of the laundry-rooms of their grandfather’s palace has earned them both the discretion of the extended household staff and the assurance that all of their backgammon games going forward will be chaperoned by the oldest and most garrulous nursemaid still employed. 

Not all the list is beholden to prurient concerns. The last time Prince Curufinwë II attempted to intercede for his father with his cousin Princess Artanis about the matter of her hair, he walked away with a black eye and very nearly concussed. The Princess would not seem to need much assistance in this matter, but putting the two of them as far as possible from one another in seating arrangements remains a best practice. 

Many configurations of cousins; many reasons to keep them separate at all costs. 

And yet: no one ever has cause to worry about Maitimo and Findekánë.

The Princess Nelyafinwë: eldest, tallest, most radiant, most modest, given to her mother’s simple and practical tastes—as if her beauty would need any embellishment. And her little handmaiden, her favorite: Nolofinwë’s oldest and first daughter, no longer so little in age but still slight of build, lissome and lovely with her gold-threaded locks, her easy, charming smile. 

People _like_ looking at them together, as if they are a complementary set: one burnished bronze and ebony, one alabaster and amber. 

(More than one savvy Tirion street-merchant has profited from fashioning dolls that must be purchased in twos—one in red, one in blue.) 

Indeed, the tender friendship between the senior-most princesses is a paragon for all their kin, a symbol moving even their fathers to a semblance of propriety. Or at least to remove to separate ends of a ballroom, while all eyes turn to their daughters, performing diplomacy simply by standing at each other’s sides.

The graceful manner in which they touch each other’s shoulders, take each other’s hands, puts to shame all the mired unrest, the ill-will between siblings and cousins. 

For this, Maitimo and Findekánë are favored by their grandfather, looked upon by all their people as the highest example of maidenhood: for their sensitivity and good judgment, the grace and beauty of their conduct and the unmarred nature from which it springs. Their purity; their chastity. 

All proclaim that they will make, some near day, coveted brides among the princes of other clans.

###

Look, one is arriving now at the house of Curufinwë Fëanáro: a Vanya whose mother has interests in a hilltop that may or may not belie a large seam of silver-ore. He is unfashionably early; he has a sea of brothers to part at the breakfast table. He is assured by a lady’s maid that the Princess and her parents will receive him in due time.

Nevermind that Lady Nerdanel is in her studio, covered in clay dust; that the Crown Prince has been up for three turnings of the Trees calculating patterns of crystal cleavage and is currently dead asleep in his armchair. 

And that the Princess is with her cousin, as the Princess so very often is; and they are not to be disturbed while attending to the Princess’s dress. Findekánë requires unbroken concentration to perfect the plait-work in her cousin’s hair—abundant as it is—and so no one questions the advisability of leaving the two young royals thus unchaperoned, and behind heavy doors. 

Maitimo’s hair _has_ been well attended to, in a half-finished, delicate braid-lattice woven by careful and clever fingers—fingers that had strayed and teased and returned to the task sticky and salt-smelling. Before they had abandoned it altogether; silk sheets and static electricity are now undoing much of the work. And it is not only Maitimo’s braids that are being undone. 

“ _Kánë_ —” 

Thus invoked, in her labors beneath the sheets, the younger of the cousins applies her tongue—so renowned for its sweet and gentle nature—in long, cruel, _slow_ lashes. Her cousin is a fruit she would eat of endlessly, swollen from its skin and dripping first down her arm, then her face, the hot core ever-replenishing, ever- _wet_. 

Findekánë knows the power she has: that the stately and proud Princess Nelyafinwë will be with one touch, one glance reduced to liquid, a woman barely holding surface tension beneath her formal gowns. 

How long they had resisted; how long Maitimo had kept a cool, determined distance, even in the intimacy of friendship. Long enough for Findekánë’s majority, for the embarrassment of an adolescent crush to burn away, and then maddeningly long after. Long enough for Findekánë to become well-assured of her own handsomeness, enchanting without a second thought all the eligible young _neri_ —and worse, the _nissi_ who stood watching, their sisters and cousins, all bitten lips and shifting skirts. 

Then it was Maitë’s turn to be driven mad. 

But she had gotten her way, hadn’t she: the same stubborn resolve that had kept her cousin’s clever tongue away from her cunt now contrived to keep Findekánë there as often as their schedules permitted. 

Maitë should have been careful what she wished for. 

Findekánë will not relent, though her cousin pleads and bucks against her small mountain of goose-down pillows, slipping her hands beneath the sheets to fist in gold-bound braids, mouths and half-utters a profaned litany of the holiest words there are—straining to keep quiet, knowing from her abundance of brothers that the doors are not as thick as they seem. 

But Findekánë has learned patience, the value of prizes won after long labor. She will not be rushed; she will savor. 

And so she slows ever further, until she knows each ministration is a small earthquake—summoning Maitë’s shallow gasps and whispered curses, the hot, insistent press of her arching further, further—

—until she spills forth in total spasm. Findekánë groans her own muffled blasphemies at the release, cunt-drunk and still drinking, the pleasure pouring into her, still greedily lapping when her cousin breaks from stupor and wrests her upward. 

Findekánë accedes to being handled—enjoys, in fact, the knowledge that Maitë can still toss her around as if she is a child, something merely toy-sized rather than a _nís_ of full stature, if that stature is still on the small side. 

She settles her own slickness against the soft of her cousin’s belly, rocking gently. 

“So strong,” she says. 

The way Maitë watches her mouth move, Findekánë knows that Laurelin's light through the window-panes must be dappling the slick leavings on her lips and chin. 

Her cousin’s voice is low. “Come to me.” 

Findekánë cocks her head. “And to what possible end would you make such a demand?” 

Yet she bends forward, pressing her bare chest against Maitë’s slip, hitched as it is just to the lower curve of her full tits. Proper Noldo girls never accentuate; the style is to be nearly as flat as the boys, a convention that presents no challenge to Findekánë with her modest handfuls. Yet her cousin is forever straining against layers of courtly dress, threatening to burst forth; barely covered like this, the flushed areoles and nipples beneath the thin fabric are almost more arousing than they would be with no concealment at all. 

“Hm?” Findekánë travels a hand under the slip, savoring the blood-rush she raises from milk-pale skin. “Speak, cousin, or I will fear I have left you witless.” 

“Show me,” Maitë raises her head, slightly, leveling half-lidded eyes with ruddy lashes, “what I taste like.” 

She nearly swallows that last bit, but Findekánë more than receives the meaning, grinning as she gathers on her tongue the tang of salt and sweetness, pooling their mingled fluids. Bowing her head with all the deference a princess should show to one above her station, she spits carelessly into her cousin’s open and waiting mouth. 

The way Maitë trembles at this, it seems as if she might come all over again, touchless. 

Findekánë strokes her cheek, kisses and bites her ear. “How you love when I degrade you.” 

“How you love to degrade _me_ ,” Maitë murmurs, rolling to kiss her in turn. 

“I prefer to think I am worshipping. Worship just has a peculiar meaning, to you.” 

Their entwinement is broken by a gentle knock on the door. 

“Princess Nelyafinwë?” 

Findekánë scrambles back under the sheets, making her best impression of a body pillow. 

“Yes…?” Maitë calls, most innocently. 

The maid’s voice through the door is muffled, but still pointed in tone: “Prince Valdion has arrived.” 

“Oh, thank you, Selwendë; we’ll only be a few minutes longer.” 

Findekánë surfaces her head. “Yes, Selwendë, we’re not quite finished yet.” 

Maitë shoves her. “Have him wait in the study,” she calls. “Káno can play his new verses.” 

“Good.” Findekánë murmurs; pressing once again into her side, planting a kiss under the armpit. “That’ll take _forever_.” 

“My lady,” says the maid through the door. Her steps carry softly away. 

Maitë looks down on her curled cousin, stroking her bronze cheek. 

“You meant _you_ hadn’t quite finished,” she says lovingly. “You absolute brat.” 

“Oh, but I’m very quick, compared to you.” 

“You never _let_ me be quick…” 

“You’ll be downstairs with what’s-his-face in no time at all.” 

Maitë plays her fingers over the curve of her cousin’s shoulder. “In that case, I should prefer you elongate the performance.” 

The request for _performance_ resonates glitteringly in Findekánë’s deep-blue eyes. “And what of your dearest wish to become a Vanya housewife?” 

Maitë groans. “He’s just going to ramble on about, I don’t know, the vanguard in poetic meter. While trying desperately not to look like all he can think of is the fact that I’m a foot taller than him.”

“You _are_ far too tall.” Findekánë tsks. “Perhaps by the time we arrive he’ll want to marry Makalaurë instead.” 

“Káno will scare him.” 

“Your brothers scare all your would-be suitors.” 

“Not you.” 

Findekánë slinks upward, until she straddles Maitë’s lap, leveling her pert brown nipples to her cousin’s eyeline. She watches in pleasure as her pupils blow wide: black limned with gray. 

“So I am one of your suitors? Shall I beseech my uncle for a set of silver rings?” 

“I think my father is far too aware of your father’s holdings, and the fact that none of them is a silica-mine.” 

“That would be his objection? Over our consanguinity, our sex— _and_ detesting his half-brother?” 

“Let’s please stop speaking of our fathers.” 

Findekánë plants a kiss on Maitë’s freckled temple. “I shall despair of your wedding night.” 

Maitë takes her face, touches her lips, lets Findekánë suck the pads of her fingers. “And I yours.” 

“Oh, I think I’ve no need to ever marry.” Findekánë kisses her cousin’s wrist—willing away the thought of her father’s friends and their eligible sons, the many stilted tea-times she has endured herself. “Not with seven cousins ahead of me to produce suitable heirs to the House.” 

“You make the bold assumption that anyone will wish to reproduce with my brothers. Or myself, for that matter.” 

Findekánë sighs petulantly. “Perhaps I will simply throw myself off the sea-cliffs at Alqualondë…” 

“…Kánë!” 

“…and be reborn from Mandos not your cousin.” 

“That isn’t how it works, Kánë.”

“And with a cock.” 

“I much prefer you with—” But Maitë has noticed how her breath hitched, on that last utterance. “Well, perhaps I should like to see it. Tell me more, my dear, reincarnate, certainly-not-cousin.” 

Findekánë settles her hands at the joint of Maitë’s neck and collarbone, rubbing circles on smooth skin as she summons the courage for her performance. 

“I will tell you of _our_ wedding night.” Her voice goes breathy, shallow; she loves Maitë watching her like this, listening to her rapt; loves how thin the veil becomes between their two minds. And how Maitë knows when to escalate her touch; she starts now, slowly, long fingers just teasing at the flushed lips of Findekánë’s cunt. 

She feels herself grow harder, at her cousin’s hand; it is all too easy to picture herself, broad and muscle-bound, and her great length rising, strained against the breeches of some suffocating ceremonial regalia. 

“I am certain whatever you are visualizing is very enticing,” Maitë purrs sardonically, continuing to coax small shudders from Findekánë. “But I would have you fulfill your promise put it to words. Beloved.” 

“Words. Yes. _Beloved._ ” Findekánë juts out her chin. “Well, we have had a flawless wedding feast, and everyone was entirely well-behaved, and my mother has wept out of happiness, and even your mother has—” 

Maitë draws her hand down. “Too much scene-setting. And I thought we weren’t cousins, in this scenario.” 

“Then all you need to know, in this scenario, is that I am _extraordinarily_ tall.” 

“Ah. Realism.” 

“Yes. I make you feel dainty and girlish. Protected.” Findekánë indulges in sincerity, ducking down to take, for a moment, Maitë’s left tit in her mouth, then the right. Protectively. 

She rights herself, satisfied when Maitë shivers and returns her fingers where they ought to be: probing the slick of Findekánë’s cunt. 

“Now. We have undressed one another quite—” she pauses for a small gasp, “—somberly and ceremoniously, and are beholding in awe each other’s unconcealed form…” 

“Already done that.” Maitë nips the lobe of Findekánë’s right ear, burrows into her neck. 

“But you’ve never yet beheld my— _mmph_.” Findekánë bites her lip, rocking onto her cousin’s fingers. “What I mean is, you’re a blushing virgin, and this is the first time you’ve laid eyes on my massive cock.” 

It is Findekánë’s turn to swallow words now. Maitë strokes, murmuring in her ear. “It is quite enormous. And growing, I see.” 

“Yes.” Findekánë hisses, the throbbing hardness within her building. “Under your hand.”

She feels airless, like she is straining at the edges of her being; one more moment without breath and she might burst into this body she dreams in. 

Yet she must speak. “And you are overcome,” she exhales, then breathes in steadily, gathering the swirling pleasure deep in her belly. The first few times her cousin touched her, Findekánë came almost instantly; now she can control herself. “You must have me in your mouth.” 

“Oh, must I?” 

“Yes, you’re— _ai!_ —really quite insistent.” 

“How very improper, in the solemn bond of marriage.” Yet Maitë’s mocking tone belies the sweet strokings of her hand—drawn out, now, pacing herself as much as Findekánë is, the two of them in lockstep, partners in a dance that has far from reached its coda. “What next? I am on my knees for you, my lord.” 

The whispered title, and the picture Maitë paints, her voice low and hoarse—all of it sends Findekánë nearly to the edge. 

“You can barely take me,” she manages, bucking upward. “Y-you’ve never sucked cock…” 

“Mm. I am an unsullied bride. But I _so_ wish to please you, fair husband.” 

“Yes,” Findekánë laughs, and gasps again, hissing: “You’re so _eager_ for me, you gorge yourself all at once.” 

Now Maitë laughs, too. “Oh, gods, Kánë, don’t try to _asphyxiate_ me.” 

Findekánë blushes, pulls back. “Is it too much?” 

_I am too much_ , she thinks, drawing back into her smallness. 

She has always taken pleasure in the beholding of both sexes, and in the concept of the male form—even toyed with a few _neri_ , observing with no small jealousy the mechanism of their arousal, how they can be at once both angular and tumescent, while for a _nís_ pleasure is amorphous, perceptible in undulations of curve and softness. And this is why Findekánë works her body, runs and swims and lifts to grow her strength, tame her muscles to firmness. (She still bests both her brothers at wrestling, though this can possibly be attributed to the fact that Turukáno is a bookworm, and Arakáno a child. Írissë she no longer challenges, given how much practice her sister has with Tyelko and Curvo—under the watchful eye of a gym-warden—and the amount of each other’s hair they have ripped out over the years.) 

But though she desires a different form—cultivates it quietly, longs for corded limbs, a smooth, taut chest and belly, _a cock_ , though she barely admits this to herself in sincerity—Findekánë knows that women have ever been the desire of her cousin. And that Maitë has had many, behind closed doors such as these, in the long years before they were able to turn to one another. She is resigned to marry, out of political and familial duty, but indifferent to men. 

Had Findekánë been born one, as she sometimes wishes, she despairs to think of such indifference being cast upon her. 

The indulgent look Maitë gives her now puts her to shame: too familiar from childhood. Worse, she removes her hands again—although to the curve of Findekánë’s ass, which is not so much worse. 

“It’s lovely,” Maitë says. “I’m teasing.” 

Findekánë feels the flush cross her breast, her cheeks. 

“You’d prefer a little less about cock, though.” 

She still grinds back gently, apologetically, filling Maitë’s hands, watchful of her cousin’s caught breath. 

“I like you as you are, yes.” Maitë bites her lip. “But also as you would be.” 

Findekánë’s blood rises, at her words, but there is no time to betray this reaction; Maitë has already taken her by the wrists—such power in those long arms—and drawn her in for a deep kiss. 

The press of their bodies is intoxicating. When first they had laid hands on one another, this was all Findekánë thought she could ever need: Maitë’s embrace, the smoky-sweet musk at the joint of her neck, and her plush mouth—so concealed behind the distant smile she so often wears in public. That Findekánë has ever touched her any other way—in _so_ many other ways, the repertoire still ever-expanding—is an endless gift. 

Insinuating that her desire supersedes the bounds of such overwhelming blessing feels wicked. 

Yet Maitë always meets her want, no matter how vast. 

She thumbs a slow circle on Findekánë’s belly, breaking the kiss. “I believe,” she murmurs, “we have yet to be properly married.” 

“Ah.” Findekánë rocks into her cousin’s hand, as Maitë again travels her fingers down through the thatch of hair on her mound, flecked with moisture. “Well. You have primed me to breed like…a stallion…” 

Maitë lets out a little, snorting laugh, but kisses her cousin’s ear. “Yes, I have you completely in my snare. My strong, noble, dignified husband— _my prince_ …”

At this, her long fingers push into the silken wet—Findekánë helpless, mewling, gasping to lean forward onto the headboard. 

“…reduced to naught but cunt-lust. Begging me for relief.” 

Findekánë recovers herself, draws a deeper, steadier arousal than she thought possible from the dark tone she finds her own voice inhabiting: 

“I will have what is mine by right.” 

Maitë tilts her chin, defiantly, but cannot hide the crimson of her cheeks. “Then take me,” she says, barely above a whisper. “And tell me how you shall.” 

And though it is Maitë doing the taking, stroking her to the precipice of rapture, with her cousin’s encouragement Findekánë gathers all she held in reserve for the final act. 

“You have so swollen me with your clever mouth. I would spill in an instant. We must be…careful.” Her breath hitches, and now Maitë’s does too, watching her, pacing her caresses. “How thoughtless you have been, in your wantonness. You know we must be— _mmph_ —joined by my seed.” 

Findekánë feels a spasm coiling in her core, but breathes it back, steadies herself. 

Her voice goes low. “I would have you on your back for me.” 

“My lord.” Now Maitë presses forth, finds the spot that shatters Findekánë’s field of vision with bright sparks. She tries to pull back, bites her lip and wrenches her hips; resists again the collapse into pure pleasure, but her will is fraying. 

“I would have you…spread your legs,” Findekánë continues, surprised she has the breath for any utterance. 

“I am spread wide,” Maitë whispers into her neck. 

“And are you slick for me? Do you want me as I want you?” 

Some genuine feeling bleeds into this feigned query; Findekánë lowers her gaze, pretending—she hardly has to—that this is an effect of the shuddering delight radiating from her cousin’s touch. 

Yet Maitë fixes her flashing eyes on Findekánë, and takes her cousin’s chin in her non-occupied hand—Findekánë bites for the thumb, but Maitë is forceful, anchors them, until all the world narrows to their two bodies, their two minds. 

“I am afraid,” Maitë intones, her voice strange and fey, “of how much I want you.” 

In this the whole of the fantasy breaks, and Findekánë, too, as if she were made of glass—shattered, mindless. She does not think of having a cock, of what she is, what she lacks. Her body is beside the point; in her cousin’s hands, she is only _fëa_ , a blinding wave of it collapsing every boundary she has lived within. 

Still she has taken the precaution to bite down on one of her own braids, though Maitë below her seems, at the moment, to have no qualms about her cries echoing through the halls. She strokes her through climax greedily, fingers drawing forth new streams of pleasure, reveling in the sight of Findekánë undone. Wanting more. 

“Do you fill me?” Maitë hisses. “Will you swell me with your seed?” 

“I…” The braid falls loose, but Findekánë cannot speak. 

The summoning of this image—the urgency with which Maitë betrays her own investment in the fantasy—surges over her, drowns her in a place beyond language, beyond anything but their perfect joining. 

Findekánë bites down on her own palm—she will be reminded, in the days to come, by the red welt—and collapses forward into a desperate kiss, Maitë welcoming her, wanting her. Findekánë lets herself be held. 

There are some benefits to smallness. 

“So many possible pleasures,” Maitë says, carding her sodden hand through Findekánë’s braids. “And you would have me laying back and thinking of Yavanna and Aulë. Sowing the fields.” 

Findekánë scoffs sleepily, from her comfortable perch on Maitë’s tits. “ _You_ were starting to get into it. _Beloved_.” 

“We’ll have to get in lots of practice, before the blessed day.” 

Maitë seems to aim for droll, but only sounds hollow. 

Findekánë leans forward kiss her. 

“You should get up,” she says gently. “Before I leave a mark that scandalizes the suitor.”

###

In fifteen minutes, when a second, less-courteous knock comes to the door, and it is opened unbidden, Lady Nerdanel—Crown Princess, if she has to be, though she very much prefers not—beholds her only daughter at her vanity, quite fully dressed, finishing the plaits in her hair. Her cousin sits beside her, a book open on her lap.

“Maitimo, we’ve got to—oh, good morning, Findekánë dear. I didn’t know you were here.” 

“Hello, Aunt." Findekánë smiles. "I came to be of assistance.” 

"You haven't been much," Maitë says mildly, as Findekánë pulls a face at her through the mirror.

And then her daughter turns around, in her very fine raiment and coiffure. Nerdanel’s heart falls, a little, thinking of whatever pedestrian princeling is waiting downstairs. She has always been overwhelmed by Maitimo’s beauty—chose the name _well-formed_ as a sculptor and mother in awe of a creation that had come to her so unknowingly. Yet she loathes the custom requiring that beauty to be paraded about, to be prized over keen intellect, over strength. Loathes her own deference to custom, and Maitimo’s love for her mother that renders her pliant. 

She has taught her daughter too well, that they are the ones who must build alliances. 

“You look lovely, darling.” Nerdanel smiles, fastening an earring; there is still a rime of clay under her fingers. “But if we aren’t downstairs in three minutes your father is going to beat us there and somehow start a trade war with Taniquetil.” 

Maitë snorts. “I do not think Valdion is anywhere near an economist. Is Atya even awake?” 

“I got Atarinkë on him. He made up something about observing an odd calcination in one of the kilns.” 

Maitë crosses the room, her cousin following. “What a little double-agent you have.” 

“Well, now Atya is _very_ awake, and in need of direction for his energies.” Nerdanel takes her daughter’s hand. “He will behave, if you are seated beside him.” 

Findekánë smiles. “We are all moved to our best selves, by Maitimo’s presence.” 

Nerdanel catches the flicker on her niece’s eyes. It is less plain than it was when she was a girl, hidden by tact now, by years of performance for polite society. Still she wonders about the two of them—but does not let the wonder go too far. They are good for one another, as women are; as women must be. 

Downstairs the unsuspecting, golden-haired victim is surrounded by inquisitors. Nerdanel bids the boys stand down; Fëanáro and his double are nowhere to be seen, so they’ll have a few minutes yet to become respectable company. 

Findekánë accepts a kiss from each of her cousins, all of them but the Ambarussa taller than her but still deferential. All sweet to her—Makalaurë of course, who makes a point of being sweet to everyone, but even Tyelko, whose conduct with Findekánë’s sister tends more toward an ongoing, unresolved sparring contest, and Carnistir, who has no art at all when it comes to conversing with women. Everyone loves Findekánë; is moved to love by her. 

Even the Vanya prince seems just as beguiled by her bright smile, in homely house-dress, as he is by Maitë, standing more indifferently in all her fine clothes. 

The princesses embrace last, and casually. They are never long parted in company. Nothing seems to linger between them, as Maitimo turns to receive her guest, easily beginning her kind inquiries into his work, her soothings of any awkwardness left in her brothers’ wake. 

Nerdanel leads her niece to the door. 

“You won’t stay for tea?” she asks, knowing they both understand this is not a sincere inquiry. 

“I came to augment Maitimo’s charms, and that was hardly necessary, anyway.” Findekánë bows, drawing her cloak about her. “I bid you farewell, Aunt.” 

“Our tidings to your mother and father.” Nerdanel kisses her niece on the cheek. “ _All_ our tidings.” 

Findekánë smiles. “Of course.” 

“And thank you.” 

Nerdanel is not sure what she means by this, nor does her niece seem to. 

“For…being a wonderful friend to Maitimo. She so wished for a sister, as a child.” 

Findekánë lowers her eyes, seemingly out of modesty, but something in Nerdanel urges her to further explain, though the subject is impolite. 

“That the two of you are such to each other, when your fathers will hardly be brothers…it is important. To all of us.” 

At this a brief strangeness passes over Findekánë’s face, speaking to some deeper feeling than the easy smile. Yet as soon as Nerdanel perceives this, it has passed again. 

“Good day, Aunt.” 

The young woman bows a second time, and Nerdanel back to her, as she opens the door unto the bright Tree-light, and Findekánë slips away.

###

**Author's Note:**

> i read my first fingon/maedhros fic ~~back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth~~ in the livejournal era, and this is my first time writing them in any configuration, sooooo crossing this off as a life accomplishment. 
> 
> [find me yelling in the tags on tumblr! ](https://i-am-a-lonely-visitor.tumblr.com/)


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